


i wanna be there with you

by AppleJuiz



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (or is it), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Platonic Cuddling, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Suki Joins the Gaang Early
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26132653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleJuiz/pseuds/AppleJuiz
Summary: It’s with a sudden rush one night that he realizes he’s made a friend and it’s out of fear of being dumb again that he makes a decision.“You should come with us,” he says, and the words come so easy so they must be right.It probably wasn’t right to blurt out in the middle of her story about her first time sword fighting though because she stops mid sentence and blinks, mouth still formed around half a word.“What?”
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 136





	i wanna be there with you

**Author's Note:**

> I have been thinking about this fic for almost two months and finally caved and wrote it. Yes, if Suki joined the gaang early she would solve half of their problems in two seconds. Yes, I am ignoring all of that for the sake of the slow burn.

By some stroke of luck, they stay safely on Kyoshi Island for almost three weeks. 

It’s the longest Sokka has ever stayed in a place that isn’t home, and it’s amazing how quickly he finds himself comfortable in the village. He wonders how much of it has to do with Suki, who takes the time to show him around when they’re not training, not just the larger and important buildings but all the nooks and crannies, and all her favorite places.

Katara and Aang have their own things going on, he’s not entirely sure what they are, but he trusts that they can watch themselves while he ends up having lunch with Suki most days, perched on the roof of one of the buildings on the inland side of the village. 

They talk, and he thinks he’ll never stop learning from her, never stop being interested in what she has to say. Little by little he starts to see all the ways they’re the same, passing stories back and forth during their lunches, during their breaks, and by the start of the second week, for hours at night sitting out on the beach in the dark.

It’s easy, it’s fun, and he can’t believe he was almost dumb enough to miss this entirety.

It’s with a sudden rush one night that he realizes he’s made a friend and it’s out of fear of being dumb again that he makes a decision.

“You should come with us,” he says, and the words come so easy so they must be right.

It probably wasn’t right to blurt out in the middle of her story about her first time sword fighting though because she stops mid sentence and blinks, mouth still formed around half a word. 

“What?”

“You should travel with us,” he says, nodding forcefully. “When we leave, eventually. We need you. My sister can waterbend, but she can’t do much until she gets some proper training at the North Pole. Aang’s really good at airbending, but he can’t keep going up against groups of firebenders all by himself. And, I mean, I can kinda hold my own in a fight, but obviously you’re way better at it.” She’s still staring, eyes wide, and he feels his confidence trip over itself and collapse in a heap at her feet. “It… um, makes sense?”

She sits back, leaning against her hands in the sand. 

“Wow,” she says after a second. “Sokka, I’m… flattered, but I can’t just leave. I’m needed here.”

Right. She’s needed here. She’s a leader, a proper warrior with people who depend on her and a village that’s under her firm protection.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and for a second her hand reaches out and brushes his. He shivers. There’s a breeze.

“Don’t be,” he says. “I get it, really.”

“Thank you, though,” she says, eyes out on the water. “I wish I could.”

There’s a tension that lingers in the air for a second and he winces, praying that he hasn’t ruined this, the easy conversation or the night or the friendship. 

“Leaving my village was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” he offers lightly. “I thought about turning back almost every five minutes.”

She smiles at him and everything is easy again. “What are they going to do without their strongest warrior?” she teases, eyebrows quirking up. 

He blushes and hates that he blushes. But she’s smiling so he finds himself grinning too. “I was pretty much the only warrior,” he says. “Over eight anyway.”

She makes an interested face and tilts her head and it’s easy to keep on talking like they were, filling the air and the beach and the night with themselves. It’s easy to focus in on how he feels bouncy and light and seen for the first time ever maybe, instead of the tight knot in his stomach at the rejection, at the knowledge that this is all so temporary, that he’s going to lose this soon enough. 

He keeps the conversation going long after he should, Long after his eyes start to sting and the cool breeze starts to bite and the water rises with the tide and starts to brush at their toes. He wants as much of this as he can get before he’s gone. 

.

They head back when Sokka can’t keep his head up anymore, parting after a brief lingering goodnight on the path to the village. 

Suki heads back to her room, ignoring the way her eyes droop, ignoring the headache she knows she’ll have in the morning, pretending that she doesn’t feel as light as she does, like the air around her is thinner and the ground beneath her feet softer. 

There’s no single rooms in the warrior lodgings, and one of her two roommates, Min, is awake when she slips through the window. 

“Hey,” she whispers, smiling at Min and moving around to her bed like this is completely routine. Min doesn’t even say anything, just gives her a look that’s teasing and knowing and everything in between. Suki loves her girls but she grits her teeth and sighs with a bone deep exhaustion. “What?”

“Did you have a good night?” Min asks, giggling before she even finishes the question. 

“Stop it,” she hisses. “Nothing happened.”

“Sure,” Min says nodding. 

Suki swears under her breath and starts getting dressed for bed so she doesn’t have to deal with this for much longer.

“I was just conferring with one of the Avatar’s companions,” she says, stopping briefly in the bathroom to carefully wash her makeup off. 

“You guys have been conferring all week now.”

“Well, it’s very important to set up strong relationships with the Avatar and our allies in the Southern Water Tribe.” She doesn’t look at herself in the mirror as she scrubs off the rest of her paint and dries her face off. 

“So did he ask you to go with him?” 

Suki nearly chokes on her next breath, spinning around quick to stare at Min. “How do you know that?” She briefly considers if any of the girls were spying on them but she trained most of them and trusts none are good enough to get the drop on her. 

Min sits up like she’s surprised too. “He actually did?”

“How did you—?”

“Because you two have been attached at the hip since he got on his knees for you.”

“He was apologizing,” she protests and snatches her sleep clothes from the side of her dresser. “And this is an unproductive conversation. Goodnight, Min.”

“Oh, no,” Min whines. “You said no, didn’t you?”

“I’m going to bed,” she says and slowly and deliberately slips into the sheets, turning so she’s facing the wall and her thick blankets are tight around her ears. 

“Is it because you like him and you’re scared?” Min asks. They’ve been living together since they were twelve and ten, her hushed whisper perfected to be quiet enough not to wake anyone else but loud enough that Suki can’t ignore. 

“I said no, because I’m needed here,” she whispers back over the shoulder. 

Min sighs. “I know we're needed here, but… what if they need us out there too?”

It’s jarring to hear one of the thoughts that have been echoing deep in her mind out loud in Min’s voice. Apparently she’s not the only one who's been thinking about the war and destiny and duty. 

“I don’t know,” she says because that’s the honest truth, she really doesn’t. She had said no tonight because it’s what felt right but the more she thinks about it, the more she wonders. 

She closes her eyes and tries to sleep, hopes her subconscious mind will have better luck searching for answers. A part of her though is still down on the beach with Sokka, laughing at a joke that wasn’t nearly  _ that _ funny, but laughing anyway because they were sleep drunk and at ease. 

She thinks about how it was so much simpler when he was an arrogant idiot. 

He doesn’t bring up his offer when she meets him the next morning for training. She gets looks from the other girls that are half teasing, half permission. 

Four days later, the Fire Nation docks a ship where she and Sokka tossed rocks at the water the night before. Min finds her in the middle of the fight and pushes a heavy bag into her arms and tells her that the Avatar is leaving. Suki looks around at her burning home and feels herself ache deep inside. She knows in her gut though what the answer is, and Min squeezes her hand and nods her encouragement. 

She runs. 

She passes her girls and they call out directions to her until she can see the sky bison in the distance preparing to take off. 

“Hey!” she calls, skidding to a stop at the bison’s side. 

“Suki?” Sokka says leaning over the side of the saddle.

“Room for one more?” she asks and her heart is racing, her stomach twisting, as she waits for destiny to give her one more reassurance down this path. 

“Yes!” Katara says, surprisingly, sticking her hand down and helping Suki climb up onto the saddle. 

And then she’s there, and then the bison is lifting off and they’re soaring away from her village, from her home, from her girls. Within seconds it’s the furthest she’s ever been from her bedroom. Within minutes, her island is a dot on the horizon.

.

She’s quiet and he’s worried. Katara goes on about how excited she is to have another girl on the team, and Suki nods along. Aang brings up a dozen cool places they have to visit and Suki makes appropriate intrigued noises. 

But she’s still quiet. 

The craziest thing is that it only takes him a second to see the look in her eyes and exactly what’s wrong. And he can’t believe how easy it is to understand her. 

“Hey,” he says, when Aang and Katara are off in their own little conversation and he can slip back to sit next to her. 

“Hi,” she says, a little bit too bright in a way that screams stress. 

“You’re freaking out.”

“No I’m not.” She shakes her head. “Why would I be freaking out?”

“Because you’ve never left home before and we’re on a mission to save the world,” he says, leaning back against the side of the saddle and crossing his arms over his chest. “Trust me. I’ve been there before. I’ve been there like twice a week. I could feasible build a summer home—”

“Okay, I get it,” she says. “What do we do about it?”

Right. He almost laughs because they're so similar and he thought it meant that he’d somehow be good at comforting her but it really means that they’re both screwed because he doesn’t know how to fix his problems and probably can help even less with hers. 

“I don’t know,” he says instead smiling shakily. “I’ll let you know when I find out.”

She lets out a huff of a laugh and shakes her head. “Not if I figure it out first.”

She probably will and that makes him smile for real. 

She’s here. He asked her to come and she’s here and she has so much to teach him and he has so much to tell her. And he loves his sister and he’s always wanted a little brother, but this was something missing that he didn’t even know how to name. But here she is, a friend.

It’s instinct to let his hand drift across the space between them and close around hers. 

She shoots him a look, and okay, maybe he doesn’t know everything she’s thinking all the time, but he offers her a reassuring grin anyway and hopes he communicates all the mushy grateful feelings in his chest well enough. 

.

Yes, all the warriors teased her about having a very obvious crush on Sokka. 

In her defense she’s always had a lot of weird feelings about romance. It took a while to remind herself that being a warrior didn’t mean she couldn’t be other things too. As a kid most of her crushes were on the older warriors, and she was always annoyingly obvious about it, with most of them cooing over how cute she was and absolutely no one taking her seriously.

And then most of the older warriors died or left and then she was in charge. And she learns that being a leader is very different than being a warrior and she didn’t have time to see other people as viable romantic options because she’s in charge of keeping them trained and alive.

So no, she’s never really had a relationship before, and it’s been a while since she’s even thought about romance. And then Sokka shows up and humbled himself for her and stands very still as she paints precise lines on him and learns fast and asks her to travel the world with him. 

It’s as a leader though that she learns the hard way about what happens when fellow warriors date. It’s a disaster for unit cohesion and team moral, creates intense unnecessary divisions and distractions. 

And the fallout, because they are teenagers and teenagers are stupid with love, is catastrophic. The first time it happened, a terrible ugly thing of a breakup, it took months for her to get the team back on track. Suki makes sure to carefully discourage her girls from future relationships after that, and gets way too into whatever relationship do end up forming just to keep things under control.

So yes, she has a very small crush on Sokka, which honestly isn’t her fault, he’s the one who got on his knees to apologize and had the audacity to look that good in her Kyoshi uniform. But she knows that signing up to be on this team with him, protecting the Avatar, ending the war, that nothing can happen. It would just make things messy and distract them from the very important task of saving the world. 

After, she thinks. Everything is on the table for after.

.

Suki doesn’t have a tent or blankets, so he shares his when they’re sleeping somewhere cold. 

It’s different from the nights on Kyoshi, because so much of the pressure is gone. They’re not on a time crunch, they don’t have to rush through stories to get everything out. They don’t stay up as late either, to stay sharp while they’re traveling and because they know they have the next night and the next.

The whole group sleeps close, but he and Suki sleep closer so they can wait for Katara and Aang to fall asleep and talk in hushed whispers until they decide to turn in.

It’s fun. 

He still feels the weight of the world on his shoulders most days, and she does too now. But where the nights used to be the time when everything felt that much heavier, when his thoughts were louder in the silence, he feels the lightest.

Suki is funny in a strange way, always teasing him and flatly delivering jokes that make his chest squeeze tight as he tries to keep quiet. (Some nights he can’t and Katara throws the nearest object she can find at him when he accidentally wakes her up.)

She’s smart and brave and kind, and it’s easy to be honest with her about everything, his mom and his dad and black snow.

They train sometimes during the days. Mostly hand to hand since she only has one set of fans. He shows her how to properly throw a boomerang and only gets a little annoyed when she picks it up way quicker than he did. 

They fall asleep most nights facing each other. Even on the nights he doesn’t, he wakes up facing her, watching through squinted eyes as she stretches in place or prepares breakfast. On some lucky mornings he wakes up before her and watches her for a few seconds, face buried deep in her pillow, her hair splayed out, blanket knotted tight around her.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he tells her probably more often than he should, but he just is. He’s never had a best friend before and he’s so happy it’s her.

.

Okay, she’s not the best at keeping this whole little crush thing under control.

In her defense… it’s not really fair that he takes his hair down every night before bed and she just has to deal with that. 

He’s also always so close to her, which isn’t a problem obviously, but is because what is she supposed to do when he’s always propping his elbow on her shoulder and reaching for a high five and tapping his foot against hers.

It’s his fault.

But he seems to understand that actually doing anything would be a terrible idea because he doesn’t make a move either. 

It doesn’t stop him from brushing her hair behind her ear and holding her hand sometimes at night and smiling at her like that all the time, almost knocking her out with it. It doesn’t get rid of the heat that boils over inside her when they’re sparring and she finally pins him down and finds herself with her hands on his wrists and her knee on his hip and that terrible stupid second where she thinks, “Why not? Why shouldn’t we?” When he smiles up at her and she wants to explode, wants to feel every inch of that smile over and over. 

He always sets them back on track, tapping out and conceding her victory with a little laugh. 

But other than that, things are going fine.

Katara was greatly disappointed when Suki admitted she didn’t really know anything about sewing or laundry, but quickly forgave her when she convinced the boys to volunteer to learn. Aang loves hearing stories about Kyoshi so Suki goes deep into memories of her early days of training, drags up every fact about her that she can remember. She lets him try out new tricks with her fans and he shows her some insanely acrobatic airbending moves that she does her best to modify.

They take maybe the most inefficient and slow path to the North Pole, but she’s not here to tell the Avatar how to save the world, she’s just the muscle and she’s here to enjoy the ride.

.

“I hate pirates,” she confesses the night after their run in, not exactly related to his story about his favorite seal jerky but he doesn’t seem to mind. They do this a lot, this effortless jumping around in conversations. “We were always dealing with raids from the Fire Nation and some of the Earth Kingdom towns on the coast. And at least when it was a raid, they would get scared off easy when they realized we could put up a fight. The pirates were always looking for a fight, and when they weren’t they’d just loot our supply ships before they even made it to shore.”

He kicks his foot out so it’s propped up over her ankle. It’s second nature at this point, comforting each other in these little physical ways and it does nothing to help her get her feelings under control. 

“I think you’d be a great pirate,” he offers and she knows he’s talking about bedtime story pirates, adventure and costumes and the open seas. It makes her blush, she feels the heat all the way up to her ears. 

“I know nothing about sailing,” she says, grateful once again that she can keep her voice entirely under control when her face betrays her. 

“Yeah well, I do,” he says, waving his hand. 

“Oh, you’re there too?” 

“Of course I am.” He says it quickly and brushes it away, like it doesn’t make her heart skip and her head spin. Of course he is there too. 

“You do the sailing, I do the sword fights?” She’s smiling just at the thought. Pirates suck, but together they’d be excellent. 

“Well you don’t get to have all the fun,” he says. “But yeah.”

“Do you call me Captain?” she teases, trapping his foot between her ankles. Her smart thinking brain tells her in no uncertain terms to cut it out right now. 

“Uh no,” he says. “I’m the captain.”

“Why are you the captain?”

“Because I actually know how to sail the boat.”

“I’m the better fighter.”

“Which makes you a great first mate.”

“First mate!” She scoffs and rolls over, turning her back to him. She watches Aang’s chest rise and fall under his blankets a few feet away and tries to smother her smile in her pillow. 

“Suki,” he whines, his foot brushing against hers. She almost shivers. 

_ This is bad _ , her smart brain warns.  _ What do you think you’re doing here? _

“Co-captains?” he offers and she squeezes her eyes shut. 

_ Go to sleep _ , her smart brain says.  _ Stop flirting with a boy you cannot under any circumstances be with and go to sleep. _

_ It’s not flirting _ , her dumb brain protests. Her dumb dumb brain that she listens to.  _ We’re just friends. And when the war ends, we can be more. So there’s no harm in having fun now and waiting it out. _

“Fine,” she says, turning back around and getting blown away again by his face in the moonlight, his hair down and falling against his cheek. “Co-captains.”

(Of course when they are on a boat a few weeks later, it isn’t nearly as smooth sailing as they imagined it to be.)

.

“Hey, thanks for having my back there,” he says, when they’re heading in the right direction and the late afternoon goes quiet and calm.

“No problem,” she says, elbows propped up on the side of the saddle. “Honestly I’m just glad I got to punch him in the face.”

He nods wistfully. It was very nice to watch her punch him in the face. He tries to come up with a way to explain that he had always wanted to be the kind of leader that Jet seemed at first. That he’s only just starting to put together the ways that he doesn’t actually want to be the things he thought he did and that she’s been such a big part of that, of showing him the things he wants to be. 

“I can’t believe he and Katara kissed,” she says before he can put the words together, sighing very casually.

“He and Katara what?”

.

“I’m just curious. Do you think that you’re overreacting?” she asks.

“How am I overreacting?” he asks, spinning around to frown at her. “These people refuse to believe in science and logic and that’s-that’s ridiculous!”

“Okay, so you’re serious,” she says, nodding. “Just checking.”

“He wears the shoes everyday! Of course the stupid prediction is going to be true if he--”

“Sokka,” she says, reaching out and grabbing his shoulder. It grounds him for a second and he lets his shoulders drop. “I don’t disagree with you.”

“Thank you,” he says, and she rolls her eyes. Her hand drops off his shoulder and they keep going. “How are you not sweating?”

“Why would I be sweating?”

“We’re climbing up the side of a volcano.”

“It’s only been five minutes,” she says. 

Not that that matters, he’s practically drenched. “I hate you.” He doesn’t. She leads the way, finding footholds easily and effortlessly, offering back her hand whenever he gets caught up and dragging him up to the next step. “So… what did she predict for you?”

She laughs immediately and loudly, stops climbing to lean up against a rock for a second. He frowns, as hard as it is when her laughter is that contagious. 

“What?” he asks. 

She shakes her head, and then he can’t not smile at the way her eyes crinkle and her shoulders shake. 

“Sokka,” she says with a smile and a sigh. “Fortunetellers aren’t real.”

.

She finds Aang out on the beach in the dark, legs crossed, frowning. There’s always this dissonance, knowing that he’s the Avatar, but also knowing that she’s close to four years older than him, that she’s trained and comforted and led girls his age.

“Hey,” she says coming up next to him. 

“Hi Suki,” he says, smiling weakly at her.

“Thought I’d give them some space,” she says. 

“Yeah.” He sighs heavily. 

“You okay?” she asks. He nods, but even just that is not convincing in the slightest. She sits down next to him. “You know they’re not going to leave you right?”

“How do you know that?” he asks. “It’s their dad.”

“It is,” she says carefully. “And they miss him a lot. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to leave you behind.”

“Do you miss your family?” 

“I haven’t really had a family for a little while,” she says. “Not a biological one anyway. I miss the other Warriors a lot, but I’m glad I’m here with you guys. And if I went home now, I’d miss you all just as much as I miss them.”

He rests his chin in the crook of his elbow and looks so tired it makes her head ache in sympathy. 

She wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls him into her side. “You’re not doing this alone, okay?”

“Promise?” He’s so small she almost has a panic attack. He’s the Avatar, but he’s also this kid she knows who likes playing with animals and learning new tricks and doesn’t want to be left behind by his friends.

“I promise.”

.

Sometimes when they spend the night in a friendly town, they’ll get some rooms. Sometimes there aren’t enough rooms or enough beds. And really if they thought about it for more than a second it would make more sense for Suki and Katara to share a bed, or him and Aang, but they don’t actually think about it or talk about it when it happens and so it’s usually him and Suki.

Which is better either way. It’s easier to be quiet when they’re on opposite sides of a bed. Her feet are always cold, but she doesn’t complain when he hogs the blankets. All in all she’s far from a bad person to share a bed with.

“How come you don’t wear your Kyoshi stuff anymore?” he asks. Her nose twitches when his breath brushes against her skin. 

She shrugs. “I don’t really feel like a Kyoshi Warrior right now,” she says, calmly even though it makes something in his stomach twist uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry,” he says. She blinks. 

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” she says. “I don’t think. It’s just different now that I’ve left. The uniform makes you part of a long tradition of warriors and community. Without the other girls it’s just… not the same.”

“Do you regret it?” he asks, because he doesn’t know how to filter thoughts around her anymore. 

“Not for a second,” she says quickly and quietly. 

It does a little to soothe the worry in his chest. He scoots forward and her eyes go wide for a second, but he presses his forehead to hers and closes his eyes.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says.

She doesn’t say anything for a while, but he can hear her breathing unsteadily. 

“Me too,” she says and her voice is shaky. He hopes she’s not thinking about home. He hopes she means it, that she doesn’t regret coming. He hopes that he doesn’t have to tell her that she’s the greatest friend he’s ever had and that this whole crazy adventure is already worth it because he got to meet her. 

They fall asleep back to back, but without fail he wakes up facing her again. 

.

They arrive at the North Pole. It’s one of the most incredible things Suki has ever seen in her life and yes, she’s here to help save the world, but she never realized how much world there was.

It makes her think of the South Pole a lot, all the stories Sokka has told her as she’s slowly become an expert in his childhood. There’s still so much she apparently doesn’t know about and she has questions and more questions, but they don’t really have a lot of time alone.

Now that they’re here, behind huge walls, among allies, she’s not sure what she’s supposed to be doing. 

Katara comes storming in their first day, fuming about Aang’s stupid new waterbending teacher and that’s a fire she knows how to put out.

“Beat him up,” she offers.

“What? No, I can’t.” 

Suki raises her eyebrows because that’s a lie if she’s ever heard one. “Do you want me to do it? Because I have nothing else going on today.”

“No,” Katara says. “No, we can’t.” But Suki can see in her eyes that she’s thinking about it. 

She spends the rest of the day walking around the tribe with Katara anyway, letting her vent and slowly calm herself down and work out a solution. And she isn’t surprised at all a few days later when Katara finally gives it her best effort and Suki finds herself shouting out tips from the sidelines.

She loses track of Sokka easily these days. 

It makes her feel weirdly uncomfortable. She’s not lost without him, she finds things to fill the time with, mostly wandering and taking in the sights and learning more about the tribe’s culture from locals. But it’s strange to go from spending days and nights together, to barely seeing him.

He comes in late one night with a look on his face that she’s never seen before. Katara and Aang are out after another long day for both of them, but she’s still reading an old collection of myths she found in the market in the afternoon.

“Hey,” she says, instinctively making room for him to drop down next to her. “What have you been up to?”

He buries his face in his hands and groans. She sets the scroll down, crossing her legs beneath her and turning towards him.

“What did you do?” she asks, raising an eyebrow, already smiling. She’s missed him.

“It’s Princess Yue,” he says into his hands. “I feel like I’m getting these mixed signals from her and I don’t know what to do. I really like her, and I thought she liked me, but every time we get close she just… pulls back.” 

Oh. 

Suki swallows hard and presses her hands flat on the blanket over her lap.

Sokka looks up and she quickly schools her face into something blank and empty. “Why don’t girls make sense?” he asks her pleadingly.

She shrugs and takes in a shallow breath. “Maybe you’re just dumb.”

“I know I am,” he says, flopping onto his back and squeezing his eyes shut. “But I feel like it’s not just that this time.”

“Well, you could just tell her how you feel and ask her how she feels,” she says. “Can’t really go wrong with open and honest communication.”

He heaves out a long sigh. “How does that sound too easy and too hard at the same time?”

She smiles because although she’s barely holding back a wave of… overwhelming something, she can’t make herself not be amused by him.

“Or you can keep being dumb and see what happens,” she offers. 

“No,” he groans. “I’ll do the smart Suki thing.”

“Glad to help,” she says and grips her blanket in her fingers. “Well, I’m turning in.”

“Yeah? Long day?”

“Kinda.”

“Oh,” he says. “Well, sleep tight.”

She makes a small effort of cleaning up the scrolls and putting out the candle at her bedside. Sokka moves over to his corner of the room, just as close as he’s always been, and she turns away.

Sleep doesn’t come for a while. A long while, and she stares into the dark until her eyes adjust and she can make out all the little dips and grooves on the wall in front of her.

Her brain buzzes like a spiderfly. 

It’s not like… Spirits, she’s not even sure what it’s not like. She knows they can’t do anything, has known from the beginning. And it’s not like she had never considered that maybe in the meantime while they could… they might… with other people. That’s not the problem. It’s really not, the more she thinks about it. She’s not jealous.

The thing about it is… the way he said it, the way he came in and sat down next to her and talked about Yue. Without hesitation, not for a second. 

They are not anything exclusive to each other. But this whole time she felt like it was unspoken. The flirting and the touching and the motions towards something someday when it isn’t a bad idea. 

But if that was true, if he felt the same, he would have hesitated. Because he’s careful with feelings when he picks up on them. The issue of course being that he sometimes (often) doesn’t pick up on them. The issue here being that he hasn’t picked up on them.

And that he doesn’t feel the same. It hasn’t been an unspoken thing, it’s just been her, creating this fantasy, crafting this intense and passionate subtext to their friendship. 

Gratefully, this means that even though he doesn’t feel the same, he doesn’t know how she feels, so she has no reason to be this mortified.

But… all these things she’s been pinning on them, all these hopes for after…

It doesn’t matter, she tries to convince herself. Because they hadn’t done anything and there had never been a guarantee they were going to. And there’s a long way before they can save the world, if they can save the world, so what did she really expect? 

She would have probably stopped having these feelings for him eventually. So really, it’s not like anything is different. It’s not like she’s lost anything at all.

.

“This is stupid,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“It’s fine,” Suki says, surprisingly calm. It leaves him faltering because he thought if anything she’d be way more angry than him at being told she can’t fight with the rest of the Northern soldiers. Honestly, it’s just the worst tactical decision he’s ever seen, but nobody wanted to listen to him about the strength and skill of the Kyoshi Warriors and Suki hadn’t said anything at all just left when they told her to. 

She’s been weird the past few days and he hasn’t had the time to talk to her about it, but it’s driving him crazy just a little bit. 

They barely have time to talk about it now though.

“It’s not fine,” he says. 

She smiles sadly and he wants so bad to ask her what happened and what he can do about it. 

“It’s not,” she agrees. “But there’s no time. You can work with them, and I can stay with Katara and Aang.”

He sighs. “That’s a good plan,” he says. She nods, and this is where she would have elbowed him or patted him on the arm before they parted ways, but she doesn’t, just turns to leave.

And he hates it, but they don’t have time to talk about it. But he does have the time to step after her, catching her wrist lightly. It’s enough to get her to stop and turn back and he feels something like relief when she doesn’t pull her arm away. 

He tugs her into a hug, wrapping his arms around her and hooking his chin over her shoulder. He feels her chest stutter with a breath against his, closes his eyes in the second he waits for her to hug him back. Even through the thick layers of his clothes he can feel her hands land on his back, steady and firm. 

“Please be safe,” she says, her fingers tightening on his shoulder.

He nods hard, pressing his chin into her shoulder. “You too.”

She pulls away first and sooner than he wants to let go, but something in him is settled. He takes a deep breath and they go their separate ways.

.

Even before the North Pole, Suki knew that a victory on paper can still be a loss.

Her friends didn’t. Not like this. 

There’s not much she can do and she knows that, knows it just like the first time one of her girls gets injured, that there’s nothing to do or say that can make that kind of discovery of new pain anything less. Pain is pain. There’s no quick healing for wounds on the inside, you just have to wait for them to scab over.

They sail away from the North Pole, different, and she wonders every night if she’s hurting for herself or hurting for them.

She’s literally hurting at first, a light burn on her shoulder, which is not bad considering she tried to fistfight the prince of the Fire Nation. But that heals fast. 

She doesn’t like losing and doesn’t like winning in name but not in spirit, but that doesn’t hurt like it used to either, after bad raids taught her that sometimes winning just means keep most of your people alive. 

She’s here to fight and protect, yes for the good of the world, but also because these are her friends, her family now. And she failed them in a lot of ways and that hurts. 

And yeah, she thinks of Yue, a girl she had all of three conversations with, but who was kind and calm and patient, who did protect, who gave up everything for her people. It hurts that brave people and kind people are the ones who always lose the most.

No one is hurting more than Sokka. 

He doesn’t talk about it, but she knows, they all do. He’s quiet. It scares Aang and worries Katara, but Suki knows that there’s nothing they can do to help. Just wait for it to scab over.

They sail away from the North Pole and she hovers at Sokka’s side like a ghost, like a shadow. 

“I’m okay,” he says, which isn’t true but she nods.

“Okay,” she says, and sits next to him at dinner.

“You don’t need to follow me around all night,” he says.

“I know,” she says, but does continue to follow him from room to room as casually as she can make it seem.

“I’m just going out to the deck,” he says. “You really don’t have to worry.”

“Alright,” she says, but walks next to him and leans against the railing of the ship with him, watches his face carefully as he looks up at the crescent moon.

“You know what’s funny?” he says, and his voice is already starting to shake.

“What?” she asks anyway, powerless to look away from him.

And then he eventually, inevitably, invariably starts to cry. And she’s there, and she catches him, planting her feet into the sturdy deck and imagining it as solid earth, and she holds on tight. 

He’s not a loud crier, he barely even shakes. But his hands are tight on her back and his breath hitches in her ears.

She holds on, takes his weight when his knees start to shake, eases them down carefully, keeping her arms around his shoulders. She spares a quick glance up at the moon and makes a promise, once again, that they are going to end this war. 

.

Suki doesn’t know how to hold a baby. 

“What are you doing?” he asks in amazement. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her this uncomfortable before, keeping the baby at arms-length, touching it as little as she physically can and engaging in a distressed staring contest. Neither party is winning, both look increasingly close to shouting. 

“I told Katara not to leave him with me,” she says, eyes breaking away to look up at him, halfway between relieved and furious. “Help me.”

He doesn’t want to, he really doesn't want to, because this is great, maybe one of the best moments of his life. But on the other hand, he owes her probably a million times over for a million different things. So he sits down next to her, his knee brushing against hers, and catches the baby when she all but throws it at him. 

Her shoulders relax instantly as he properly cradles the kid against his chest. 

“It’s just a baby, Suki,” he says. “It can’t hurt you.”

She frowns. “I am a world class warrior trained in an ancient and powerful fighting style. Why would I know what to do with a baby?”

He’s still smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. Which only makes her glare harder, crossing her arms over her chest. He presses his arm against hers, leans his head against her shoulder.

“It’s alright,” he says. “You can’t be perfect at everything.”

“Take it back,” she says lightly, pushing her elbow into his ribs. He yelps for show, and the baby gives a little shout, like a warning to keep it down up there. Suki goes back to glaring at the baby, lips pressed together tightly.

“I’m guessing you don’t want kids then,” he says.

She shrugs, jostling his head, probably intentionally. “If I want a baby, I’ll learn how to hold a baby,” she says. “Besides, who would have a kid during a war?”

He sighs. “They probably don’t have to worry about that in the Fire Nation,” he says, wiggling his fingers in front of the baby’s face to distract himself from the thought. “Here.” He sits up straight and holds his hand out over her knee, smiling when she places her hand in his without complaint. 

He slides his hands down to her wrist, guiding her hand forward to hold in front of the baby.

“Sokka,” she protests, wincing like the baby is going to bite her or something equally disastrous.

“Just hold on,” he says. It takes another second of positioning, but he gets the kid to open his chubby palm and close around her finger. “See. They’re pretty cute sometimes.”

He glances over for her expression, spotting the tiniest little lift to the corner of her mouth. 

Technically he doesn't need to be holding her hand anymore, but he keeps his fingers loose around her wrist, his thumb brushing against the sharp bone. Her skin is warm and soft and surprisingly delicate under his. 

He feels calm for a moment, with the campsite bustling quietly behind them, Suki’s pulse beneath his fingers, her breathing steady next to him, the kid warm and heavy on his arm. He feels more than calm actually, he feels happy and fuzzy deep in his soul.

And then Suki looks over at him and smiles for real, bright and fond and soft. 

And he starts to panic. 

He’s not sure why. The baby is fine, and Suki is fine, and he is fine, but his heart is suddenly pounding and he’s looking everywhere but her, scanning the area for any threats but there’s nothing there. His chest is tight though and he feels like something is really wrong, like there is danger somewhere close and he can’t turn off the alarm ringing in his head.

“Hey,” Suki says. Her free hand touches his shoulder gently and for the first time ever, it doesn’t calm him, just makes something in his stomach lurch and he flinches. She draws her hand back, eyes wide and worried. “Are you okay?”

“Did you hear something?” he asks. Suki sits up straighter, her eyes narrowing as she takes in their surroundings. 

“Where?” she asks, shoulders squared and muscles tense. She tugs her hand back from the baby and he starts to whine and wiggle. Sokka adjusts his grip on him as he squirms, hands opening and closing in the air above his face.

“It’s nothing,” he says, shaking his head out. She sits back, eyes still flickering around the camp, but unclenching her fists. “Sorry, I guess I’m just tense.” He just wishes he knew why.

.

Suki hates the swamp. She’s not scared, that’s ridiculous. There’s nothing to be scared of. 

She just hates not having solid ground beneath her, and she’s not the biggest fan of spirits or strange visions or whatever exactly happens to them. However, she hates the most how convincing it was for just a second.

The first year she was a Kyoshi Warrior, their leader was named Nila. She was tall, or well, Suki was short, but she always felt tall, bigger than life. She was sharp and clever and never treated Suki like she was cute just for being the youngest. They didn’t find her body after the battle, which Suki thought was a blessing but... 

It also makes it convincing, for just a second, when she finds Nila in the middle of a clearing in the swamp. 

She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t have to. Suki can see in her eyes the disappointment, feels it like a blow to the gut. 

Nobody really wants to talk about the swamp after they leave, which is fine, because Suki doesn’t want to talk about it either. She knows what it means, knows that it wasn’t real, but also knows that it was more than a trick from some spirit. It was a message. 

Sokka is jumpy, still healing from the North Pole. She keeps her space where she can, keeps her hands to herself because she knows better now. He gives her looks that she can’t parse, and she thinks that maybe she just convinced herself that she knew him because she wanted it to be true.

He’s still wonderful. Funny and smart and beautiful. Her eyes drift to him on instinct, her feet bring her closer no matter what she tries to do. 

She didn’t come here for him. She’s here because of him, but she came to protect the Avatar and to save the world. She came for the promise of adventure and the promise of more late night talks and well, she’s had plenty of those now.

But they land back on Kyoshi Island and she learns that her girls aren’t there, that they’re in the world, protecting those who need their help. Sokka reaches for her hand easily at the news and holds her later that night when she breaks down, overwhelmed by panic and pride and loss, his arms tight and steady around her waist. 

And she’s so grateful for him, always will be. But she can’t help but think that she made a mistake, that she’s on the wrong path, that maybe she left too much behind. 

She melts into him for a second and lets herself pretend, lets herself revel in the feeling of loving him, because it is almost enough just being in love with him. And she pulls away before she lets herself convince herself of anything more.

“I’m okay,” she says. He doesn’t look convinced, his eyebrows furrowing the way they do when he’s trying to come up with a plan. She gives herself one more break, rests her hand on his wrist and gives him her best reassuring smile. “I’m glad they’re out there.” It’s not a lie. It’s just not the problem. The problem is that she’s starting to think she should be there with them.

.

Suki weirdly starts to get better when Toph joins. They bond almost instantly in a way that he doesn’t understand, but means that she’s the only one who gets to show a modicum of physical affection for Toph without getting punched. 

He feels oddly jealous because that’s his best friend and they’ve been weird lately in a way that he hates and doesn’t know how to bring up. 

Katara gets a little jealous too, and a little frustrated with Toph. But Suki just steps up, smoothing things over and letting them both vent and helping them meet in the middle when she can. She’s incredible like that.

Which brings him to the other problem. He feels weird around her now, when she does things like that, that remind him how incredible she is. He gets… tingly and itchy and warm, and he doesn’t know what to do about it, but it happens all the time. 

When they’re talking in whispers at night, or when the sun hits her hair at a certain angle, or when she’s swimming in whatever body of water they’ve found to camp next to. He feels silently in awe of her, which is totally normal, and then he feels terrified and panicked and not normal.

Sometimes he dreams of the tunnels, her face in the orange torchlight, the angles of the shadows on her face and the warm glow of the fire reflecting in her eyes. The way her hand fumbled for his in the dark, his fingers lacing through hers naturally. He dreams that the nomads aren’t there being loud and terrible and that it’s just him and Suki holding hands, standing close enough that he can feel each breath she takes, can hear her clothes rustle when she leans forward to press her forehead against his. 

So that’s weird. 

One of Toph and Suki’s biggest common interests is making fun of him. And every time Toph beats her to the punch, Suki gets this smug little smile, her nose wrinkling and the dimple in her cheek standing out, and he just freezes, every time, bowled over by all these weird, not normal emotions.

He hates it, but he hates most things that he can’t explain with some kind of logic or reasoning. 

And then he’s staring up at the moon one night, waiting for sleep to take him when he finally puts it together and sits straight up.

It’s Suki. 

He loves her. 

He glances over at her, where she’s curled up beneath her thin blanket, one arm splayed out, the other tucked beneath her, hair wild, eyelashes fanning down across her cheeks. And he’s an idiot. 

He takes a deep breath because she’s a light sleeper, and he carefully crawls across their campsite towards his sister.

“Katara,” he hisses, poking at her shoulder. “Katara.”

She groans before squinting up at him. “I’m gonna kill you,” she says with a chilling amount of calm and focus.

“I think I’m in love with Suki,” he says. 

She opens her eyes in full, raising her eyebrows. “Yes?” she says, murderous intent still on the table.

“What do I do?” he asks, trying to very quietly convey the amount of panic he’s feeling.

“Wait,” she says, rubbing at her eyes and propping herself up on her elbow. “You didn’t know?”

Which of course, implies that she knew. And she couldn’t have because he just came to the conclusion like two minutes ago and it’s only been about a month that he’s been having this whole weird panicking thing happen.

But…

Well, that’s not entirely true. He’s only been feeling the panic since the North Pole, but the other stuff hasn’t changed at all, he always felt warm and fuzzy around Suki because she’s his best friend and…

“Katara,” he says slowly. “How long have I been in love with Suki?”

“You mean you guys aren’t dating?” Aang asks, sitting up on his sleeping bag a few feet away. Sokka barely keeps from shouting. “I thought you were just being really subtle for our sake.”

Katara scoffs. “They’ve been far from subtle.”

“Tell me about it,” Toph says, even though he didn’t even see her a second ago. “You guys don’t have to listen to their heartbeats, it’s disgusting.”

“I’m going to bed,” he says as loud as he dares with Suki still sleeping just across the fire pit. 

“Sweet dreams,” Katara says dryly, dropping back into her sleeping bag and pulling her sheets up. 

He does not have sweet dreams, because he doesn’t even make it that far, just spends most of the night awake and wide eyed, raking over every single memory he has, trying to see how far back this thing goes. And it goes and it goes and it goes. Every time he stared at her for a second too long, every time he reached for her without thinking, every time he woke up on his side facing her. Her eyes, her smile, the slope of muscles along her arms.

It goes all the way back to Kyoshi and the burnt out sunlight that makes those early moments feel like drops of gold in his hand. 

It goes all the way back, and he is an idiot.

.

She reunites with the Kyoshi Warriors at a ferry station outside of Ba Sing Sae. 

It’s brief, but it’s a reunion. She’s proud and she’s overwhelmed and she’s relieved. They’re proud of her too, for traveling with the Avatar, for all the stories about the girl with golden fans they’ve heard in their own travels. She inspired them. 

It reassures her that everything is going to be okay, that when the war is over, she can still go back, that she hasn’t lost anything at all. It’s drowned out a little by the awful ugly relief that the girls aren’t in their Kyoshi uniforms either, that she doesn't have to face them in plain clothes while they still wear their colors proudly. 

They leave the ferry station soon after, and begin the trek across the Serpent's Pass, but she’s still thinking about those few minutes she had, the shining awed look in all their eyes. She loves them all so painfully, the girls she saw and the ones who were off duty or across the station and out of reach, and they are proud of her. 

“How are you feeling?” Sokka asks her when night falls and they’re on their own at last. 

“I don’t know,” she says, but relaxes anyway because she knows he’ll make her feel better no matter what she’s actually feeling. “Good, I think.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks. His hand reaches for hers on the cool stone, and it almost surprises her. She’s been careful about keeping her hands to herself. For good reason because her heart pounds just from this.

The moon is bright and shining, like a reminder. She takes a deep breath.

“Are you okay?” she asks, turning into him, letting her thumb hook around his pinkie. 

“Me?” he asks, jolting a little. “Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be okay? Everything’s fine and normal.”

She cuts a small little gesture to the moon. “It’s okay if you’re not okay, even though time has passed.”

“Oh,” he says, blinking, shoulders slumping. “Yeah, I’m okay. I mean, I’m scared, like all the time. I’m scared of losing someone, or losing you.”

She lets her head fall against his shoulder because she can’t look at him right now, but can rely on this, on him, and on how she feels about him to guide her through. 

“You’re not going to lose me,” she says firmly. She squeezes his hand and closes her eyes. “I’ve been so worried lately that I made a mistake. That I shouldn’t be here. You’re better at fighting than ever, Katara’s so amazing at waterbending, Aang has learned so much, and we have Toph now and she can kick anyone’s ass.” She grins at the night sky. “And I miss the girls and… I thought maybe I should go back.”

“What?” Sokka squeaks, his shoulder is slipping out from under her. “No, we need you here. I-I need you here.”

Her chest aches, in a good way, warm and full. 

“I mean, of course, if you wanted to go back, you could go back.” He barrels on, his eyes flicking between her face and his hands in his lap. “But if you think we don’t need you or…”

“Sokka,” she says and his attention snaps back to her in a second. His eyes are so blue and bright, like the ocean at sunrise. “I’m not going anywhere.” She wants to touch him so bad, but keeps her hands tight at her sides. “I’m where I’m supposed to be. And I’m glad I’m here. With you.”

She paused too long. And ‘you’ can be plural but she knows she didn’t say it like it was plural. Something flickers in his eyes and he has to know now. It’s a miracle that he hasn’t known, because she didn’t even know to hide it at first and doesn’t even know if she can at this point. It’s all there for him, on her face, in her eyes, in her voice. 

“Suki,” he says softly. “You…” He makes a little noise in the back of his throat that’s strangled and hoarse. He leans in and her heart forgets to beat for a second. And then his hands are on her shoulders and he’s kissing her. 

He’s kissing her. His mouth on hers, his lips warm and chapped and moving against hers. She doesn’t even make the conscious decision to kiss him back, she just is, without hesitation, like she’s been waiting for it.

She has been. 

It’s soft and slow and mind-numbingly deliberate. He’s warm and sweet. She presses her hand to his chest and strokes her thumb along the hollow of his throat where his pulse pounds. Something in her chest seizes and she pushes gently at him, pulling away even as her hands shake, desperate to grab tight and not let go. 

“What are you doing?” she asks, embarrassingly breathless. 

“Sorry,” he says, eyes wide and bright and… oh. Better question, what is she doing, when he’s looking at her like that, like there aren’t any stars in the sky, like there isn’t anything in the world but the two of them.

She leans in, and he meets her in the middle, reaching for her, kissing her again. An urgency thrums beneath her skin, a warning that it might all be a trick of the light, that she should hold on, make every second count. She digs her fingers into his shirt and squeezes her eyes shut and pleads with the universe for this to be real. 

His hand slips up, brushing over the back of her neck before burying in her hair. 

She wants to be closer, presses up against him as best as she can. His arm finds its way around her waist, keeping her balanced as she slides into his lap. 

It’s real. It’s real, and she recognizes him in this moment in the strangest ways, the quirk in the corner of his mouth, the worn fabric of his shirt at his back, the soft stubble at the side of his head, all familiar but new at the same time. It’s real, and it’s Sokka.

It’s Sokka with his fingers pressing the space between her shoulder blades, Sokka with his nose pressed into her cheek, Sokka with his chest against hers warm and steady.

“Suki,” he breathes, his voice shaky, his thumb light against her temple. She kisses his cheek and the skin beneath his eye and bridge of his nose, before the spinning out in her chest starts to calm. This is real, and she can press her forehead to his and start to come down from the high.

This is real, and this is Sokka, and her brain turns itself back on and says,  _ Okay, are we good now? Can we deal with this now? _

Oh no, she has to deal with this now.

And then of course, she remembers the real issue here and sighs, feeling all the wonderful light and bubbly stuff in her stomach gust out with it.

“We can’t,” she reminds herself, leaning away.

“Why not?”

She shakes her head. “We’re teammates. It would ruin everything. Things get messy.”

“What?” 

“Trust me, relationships only create unnecessary divisions and dangerous distractions,” she says. He still blinks up at her with wide and pleading eyes. It’s not fair that he makes this so hard always. She misses the days when she thought they were on the same page, even though it was hard enough keeping her distance then. She can only imagine how hard it’ll be now that she knows how perfect his hands fit against her sides. “It means we prioritize each other over the rest of the team. And if we fight, or if we break up, it forces sides and more division. We need to be focused.”

He scoffs. “Who says we’re going to break up?”

“We might. We don’t know.”

“Suki, I’ve apparently felt this way about you for months, more months than from now until the eclipse, so statistically it’s unlikely I’ll stop.”

“Relationships don’t work statistically,” she protests. 

“Well, I don’t plan on breaking up with you.”

“You can’t plan a breakup.” Though if anyone would, it would be Sokka. 

“Do you plan on breaking up with me?” he asks, tilting his head smugly like he’s making some fair point and isn’t being ridiculous.

“I don’t plan on dating you,” she says, wincing when his face falls. “That doesn't mean I don’t want to. Look, even back when I thought you felt the same, I knew we had to wait until we ended the war. And I was willing to wait.”

“Wait, back when you what?” 

She feels her face go hot, pulls back to run a hand through her hair. “Before the North Pole, I didn’t know that you didn’t feel the same.”

“What? You-you knew you liked me, and you thought I felt the same, and… Why didn’t you say anything?” he asks, arms flailing out.

“Well, because I thought you also understood that it would be bad for the team,” she says, crossing her own arms over her chest. 

He tips his head back. “I can’t believe literally everybody knew that I was in love with you this whole time and I only found out last week.” 

Her heart pounds painfully and she swallows hard. “You’re in love with me?” 

He breathes in fast, his eyes coming back down to hers. He nods, as solemn as she’s ever seen him. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I am. And I didn’t know, but now that I do… I’m tired of wasting time and being dumb. I’m tired of not being in love with you.”

“I love you,” she says, and it feels as easy as every other truth she’s ever told him. “But, we--”

He shakes his head. “We already feel this way about each other, and we’ve been working as a team just fine. And they’re always fighting about something.”

“The war needs to be the priority,” she says, but she knows she’s losing her resolve. It’s not her fault, his hands are on his waist and he’s smiling at her like that and he loves her. 

“It already is,” he says, nodding intenty. “This can just be a close second.”

She rolls her eyes but she’s kissing him again anyway. 

.

“You really didn’t know?” she asks, in whispers again, because they’re back at the campsite, curled together in a sleeping bag that’s not big enough for the two of them.

“I’ve never had a best friend before and I’ve never been in love before,” he says. “How was I supposed to know the difference?”

“We shared a bed,” she says.

“So did Katara and I when we were little.”

“We hold hands all the time.”

“Friends can hold hands.”

“That one time you hugged me for a minute and a half.”

“You said you were having a sad morning.”

“I wore your clothes.”

“You didn’t have any pajamas that first week.”

“Yeah, but I continued to wear them.”

“They’re comfortable clothes,” he hisses, but she’s smiling and pressing a kiss to the side of his neck, dotting a line up to his lips. He kisses her back lightly, humming in the back of his throat. 

“Hey Sokka,” she whispers.

“Yeah?”

“I just want you to know that… that was a romantic kiss, not a platonic kiss.” He groans, tipping his head back as she laughs.

“Shut up,” Katara calls, throwing a pillow that miraculously lands right on his face. 

Suki laughs harder, smothering the sound with her hand, but even still it’s the best thing he’s ever heard. 

“Sorry,” she calls back while he bats the pillow away. 

“Just go to sleep,” Katara grumbles, turning over.

They don’t for a while, but it’s even easier to whisper when they’re close enough to share breaths. And it’s even quieter to kiss than to whisper. He falls asleep with her arms around his waist and her forehead against his collarbone and he wakes up in the same position. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed this because I am so relieved to have exorcised this demon from me. If you are someone who is good at plot, please tell me how you think the plot would change if Suki was on the team bc I love this idea and wish I was smart enough for it. (Also if you want to see a scene in this verse lmk bc I’m not opposed to exploring this further.)


End file.
